Leonardo DiCaprio

Leonardo Wilhelm DiCaprio was born on November 11, 1974, in Los Angeles, California. He is the only child of Irmelin Indenbirken, a legal secretary, and George DiCaprio, an underground comix artist and distributor. They met while attending college and moved to Los Angeles after graduating. His mother is German and his father is of Italian and German descent. His maternal grandfather, Wilhelm Indenbirken, was German, and his maternal grandmother, Helene Indenbirken, was a Russian immigrant living in Germany. DiCaprio was raised Catholic. Sources have falsely claimed his maternal grandmother was born in Odesa, Ukraine; there is no evidence that DiCaprio has any relatives of Ukrainian birth or heritage.

DiCaprio's parents named him Leonardo because his pregnant mother first felt him kick while she was looking at a Leonardo da Vinci painting in the Uffizi museum in Florence, Italy. When DiCaprio was one year old, his parents divorced after his father fell in love with another woman and moved out. To raise him together, his parents moved into twin cottages with a shared garden in Echo Park, Los Angeles. DiCaprio's father lived with his girlfriend and her son, Adam Farrar, with whom DiCaprio developed a close bond. DiCaprio and his mother later moved to other neighborhoods, such as Los Feliz. He has described his parents as "bohemian in every sense of the word" and as "the people I trust the most in the world". DiCaprio has stated that he grew up poor in a neighborhood plagued with prostitution, crime and violence. Attending the Los Angeles Center for Enriched Studies for four years and later the Seeds Elementary School, he later enrolled at the John Marshall High School. DiCaprio disliked public school and wanted to audition for acting jobs instead. He dropped out of high school later, eventually earning a general equivalency diploma.

As a child, DiCaprio wanted to become either a marine biologist or an actor. He eventually favored the latter; he liked impersonating characters and imitating people, and enjoyed seeing their reactions to his acting. According to DiCaprio, his interest in performing began at the age of two when he went onto the stage at a performance festival and danced spontaneously to a positive response from the crowd. He was also motivated to learn acting when Farrar's appearance in a television commercial earned him $50,000. DiCaprio has said in interviews that his first television appearance was in the children's series Romper Room, and that he was dismissed from the show for being disruptive. The show's host has denied that any children were removed from the show in this way. At 14, he began appearing in several commercials for Matchbox cars, which he calls his first role. DiCaprio later appeared in commercials for Kraft Singles, Bubble Yum and Apple Jacks. In 1989, he played the role of Glen in two episodes of the television show The New Lassie.

At the beginning of his career, DiCaprio had difficulty finding an agent. When he found one, the agent suggested DiCaprio change his name to Lenny Williams to appeal to American audiences, which he declined to do. DiCaprio remained jobless for a year and a half, although he had 100 auditions. Following this lack of success, DiCaprio was going to give up acting but his father persuaded him to persevere. Motivated by his father and by the prospect of financial security, he continued to audition. After a talent agent, who knew his mother's friend, recommended him to casting directors, DiCaprio secured roles in about 20 commercials.

By the early 1990s, DiCaprio began acting regularly on television, starting with a role in the pilot of The Outsiders (1990) and one episode of the soap opera Santa Barbara (1990), in which he played a teenage alcoholic. DiCaprio's career prospects improved when he was cast in Parenthood, a series based on the 1989 comedy film of the same name. To prepare for the role of Garry Buckman, a troubled teenager, he analyzed Joaquin Phoenix's performance in the original film. His work that year earned him two nominations at the 12th Youth in Film Awards—Best Young Actor in a Daytime Series for Santa Barbara and Best Young Actor Starring in a New Television Series for Parenthood. Around this time, he was a contestant on the children's game show Fun House, on which he performed several stunts, including catching the fish inside a small pool using only his teeth.